From PeterD: Esmeralda for Benito's Brook (48 points)

I am schlepping over from Piper's Peak to Benefit's Brook for this post, feeling a bit like Fitzcarraldo as I'm toting some 1/2400 steam ships with me.  Benito's criteria is a feat of arms against long odds.  I am going with the saga of the Chilean wooden corvette Esmeralda from my War of the Pacific project.

Esmeralda captured the Spanish schooner Covadonga in the Chincha Islands War in 1865 (I included the Covadonga in an earlier challenge entry), but met with pure glory against the Peruvian Ironclad Huascar at the Battle of Iquique in 1879.  This was a hopeless contest as Huascar was must faster, much better armed and was armoured against bare wood.  None the less Esmeralda fought her opponent for three hours.  The battle featured multiple ramming attempts and vicious close range fire from Huascar's 10" rifles.  Esmeralda's Captain Arturo Prat's dead body was found on the foredeck of the Huascar after one ramming attempt and the Chileans claimed that he attempted a boarding action before being gunned down.  Eventually Huascar got a solid ram into her opponent and the Esmeralda slipped beneath the waves with the Chilean flag being the last to go down. 

Along with the Esmeralda I have another Chilean Corvette the Abtao.  Actually I've realized the model is wrong for the Abtao as she was about the same size as Esmeralda, but this one will do until I get another model.

And lastly I have 4 torpedo boats, which were used by both sides during the War of the Pacific.   Chile bought 12 British models from Yarrow's and Peru bought 3 American boats from Herreschoff's.  These were all fast, carried spar torpedos and a hotchkiss machine gun.  And they all required an absolute nut case at the helm!  I have left the labels generic on these bases so that I can use them fo either side as required.

Ok by my math, that's 6 1/2400 ships at 3 points each plus 30 for the location.  One of my Challenge goals was to finish off enough ships to run a small campaign, and I've pretty much wound up the Armadas for the War of the Pacific.  David Manley has a nice little campaign that I may be running PBEM this summer with tabletop games played out locally among our group.



Incredibly, Peter tells me this is the first of five posts he is hoping to present today. And what lovely ships they are too.

I'll trust you with your scoring (but maybe not with the spreadsheet and roster!) - 48 points it is.

TamsinP

From PeterD More War of the Pacific Ships (18 points)

Another set of 1/2400 ships from Tumbling Dice for my War of the Pacific project.  As obscure as this war is I've found a small community of bloggers indulging in the same project.

The two ex-USN Monitors

First up is the last of the Peruvian ironclads, the monitors Manco Cápac and Atahualpa (those Inca names are tough to spell).  These were ex-USN Canonicus class single turreted monitors which were built too late to see service in the ACW.    They were sold to the Peruvians, fitted with fore and aft sailing rigs and minimal superstructure and relocated south and around the Cape Horn (this being before the Panama Canal).   Must have been one hell of a rough journey given the low freeboard.  

This shows the completed ships vs the original.  It also shows the sea bases included by Tumbling Dice and how they fit on my 50mm long pdf bases.

Once in Peruvian waters they were used for coastal defence and fought the Chilean fleet  in the final phases, including a duel with the Huascar after her capture, but were eventually scuttled to prevent capture.

One of the originals, as much of a bodge as my models.

The models are admittedly complete bodges.  TD doesn't make a Canonicus class monitor so I used a pack of the USS Monitor model, which was 20% shorter than these ships but it was the closest available.  I added the rig from spare fore and aft sails from one or the other TD packs of ships.  My best guess is that they came from the two Cochrane class ironclads, which I modelled mostly unrigged as they removed as much rigging as possible during a mid-war refit.  The final models are nowhere nearly being replicas of the two ships.  But they look like Civil War monitors with rigging and rudimentary superstructure attached, which is exactly what they need to look like.  If any one cars to model exact replicas Spithead miniatures makes them in 1:1200.  i didn't go that route as I like the cost and space effectiveness of 1/2400 and couldn't figure out how to order anything from Spithead.

Chileans at sea

Next up is a squadron of Chilean unarmoured ships, or Cruising ships in the Victorian vernacular.  There's no specific models for these in the TD range, so I sued whatever models looked about right based on period photos, rough dimensions available and models on hand.  We have the corvettes O'Higgins, Chacabuco and Mallaganes, all of which had an active part in the war.  

Last of all  is  the schooner Covadonga which had a history rivalling the Huascar's.  originally Spanish, she was captured by the Esmeralda (still on the work bench) and brought into Chilean service.  She had a key role in the Battle of Punta Gruesa where she outgunned the Peruvian ironclad Independencia,  who then ran aground and was lost.  Covadonga was sunk later in the war while on blockade duty by a rowboat rigged as a floating mine.

The original Covadonga.

Points wise that's six 1/2400 ships for a whopping 18 points.  Finally I'll leave you with the following video.  My wife and I are huge fans of Carol Burnett and I can't say the name O'Higgins (Higgins or Wiggins) without releasing my inner Mr. Tudball.

 

Our first entertainment of the day! And what lovely ships they are too. It's certainly fascinating to read about this little-known war. You missed one of your usual labels, but don't worry - I spotted the omission and added it for you!

TamsinP

From PeterD 1/2400 Scale War of the Pacific Ironclads (12 points)

Peruvians in front, Chileans in the background.  It turned out that only one shot of the Peruvian squadron  on its own came out, but my group shots have the Peruvians in the fore.

To follow on from an earlier post I have 4 of the major warships from the War of the Pacific fought between Chile and Peru from 1879-1884.  Back in the earlier 80s the Yaquinto board game "Ironclads" described it as a "Chilean-Peruvian Banana War", which is surely a misnomer as it was fought over the Atacama Desert where very little grows and certainly not bananas.  The key resource at stake was actually nitrate deposits from guano deposits at the large sea bird nesting sites,  yep....it was a war fought over bird sh*t.  Actually this war is also known as the Saltpetre War but 10 years earlier peru and Chile had allied  against Spain was in the Guano War.

Independencia leads Union

In addition to the Huáscar from my earlier post, back from the Peruvian fleet included these two vessels the Ironclad frigate Independencia and the unarmored corvette Union plus other oddities on the work bench.  

Independencia was armed with big rifles on pivots bow (8") and stern (7") plus 6" rifles on the broadside.  She was the Peruvian navies second most important ship after the Huascar but was written off after running aground in the war's first action.   Union was an unarmoured corvette packing a useful armament.  

Spot the doofus moment.  Note how the Blanco Encalada has more smoke and a flag.  I decided that I needed to fix this!

On the Chilean side of things we have the two central battery ironclad sisters Almirante Cochrane and Blanco Encalada built in the UK and completed just three years before the war began. They were named for naval heroes from the Chilean War of Independence, Cochrane of course being the Scot who was the inspiration for Horatio Hornblower.  They packed a punch of 9" rifles and feature the angled gun ports to give wider arcs of fire.  Cochrane survived until 1934 but her sister ship was torpedoed by the torpedo gunboat Almirante Lynch in the Chilean civil war of 1891 and was one of the first casualties of Mr Whitehead's invention.

Coinage added to give idea of scale.  Canadian quarter at the bow, loonie at the stern.

These are all Tumbling Dice 1/2400 model, and again I'm very pleased with these casting.  The Cochrane class come packaged in a pair, as do Huáscar  and Independencia.  Tumbling dice don't make specific models for the unarmored ships so I've used more generic models for these, including Union and HMS Amethyst. 

Look carefully, I've fixed the smoke on Blanco Encalada and took her flag off int he process.  Easily fixed however.

I seem to be following trends this Challenge as 19th century South American wars are on an upswing.  The Perry's released figures for a slightly earlier war across the Andes and there's a recently published set of rules for the land operations of the War of the Pacific.

These TD models have been scored at 3pts a pop, so that's a whopping 12 points for me.

Good things come in small packages. These are great, also 2nd best name for a war ever after the war of jenkin's ear.